Table of Contents

What?

CPD2 is the Cessna department that is in charge of Parts and Warranty for the entire Cessna propeller line. They currently support a fleet of over 180K aircraft between the single engine, multi-engine, and turboprop Cessna line from a 100000 sq.ft facility in Wichita, KS.

Overall process

The order desk is open and processing new orders from 4:00 AM to 7:00 PM Central Time Monday – Friday, from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM Central Time on Saturday, and processes AOG service requests 24/7. They ship off the shelf on the same day as the order arrives >95% (95.6 at latest count) of the time for complete orders. Incomplete and partial order shipments don’t count. CPD2 has over 140M worth of parts in inventory and manages 256K individual part numbers in their systems with over 44K on the self at any one time. They also have 18K part numbers for non-Cessna applications (tires, brakes, etc.) in their system and part of their distribution network.

CPD2 have set up a daily backorder report for our parts on their metrics dashboard. This is reviewed daily by the appropriate management in conjunction with IDP, TAM and ICT Supply Chain to try and reduce the lead-time to get backordered parts to the service centers to reduce aircraft down time.
Cessna requires suppliers to sign a 30-year Product Support Agreement in order to guarantee parts well into the future.

Volume

As of 2/18/08 for the “Columbia” Aircraft:

Identified 2650 300/350/400 specific part numbers
735 parts in stock at a relative cost of 1.5M
742 purchase orders in the fulfillment channel for an additional 2.3M investment in parts for our aircraft.

They are supporting the entire Cessna global sales and service network:
218 Domestic Service Stations
89 International Service Stations
14 International Distributors
31 Domestic McCauley Service Centers
25 International McCauley Service Centers

Service Centers

Service Centers are geographically located based on aircraft populations and supporting key International markets. The goal is to have a service station within 1-hour flight time of any owners aircraft home base. (See attached graphic. Aircraft symbols are Columbia Aircraft, Yellow dots are Cessna Service Stations, and Green dots are McCauley Service Stations – as of 2/18/2008)

The Service Centers all have to undergo training, have liability insurance, and carry a minimum Inventory of parts. The Inventory is important as the Service Centers are the parts distribution branches to shops in the field working on Cessna aircraft that are not themselves Cessna Service Centers.

Cessna is a full distributor and carries Cessna parts as well as most non-Cessna aftermarket parts. This allows them to be competitive with the other major parts distributors such as API and Aviall. The goal is to be the single provider of all parts for Cessna Service Stations and as such they strive to be competitive in price structure. Cessna is the only distributor of Cessna specific parts.

They inventory parts for aircraft dating back to the 1940’s and will attempt to stock any part that they feel will sell 3 or more of in a given year.

How does it work?

85% of orders come in via the web into the CPDExpress application available to all Service Centers. 85% of Warranty claims also come in via the web to CPDExpress. This is the highest percentage of electronic submission in the industry.

Cessna has to comply with many Regulatory agencies – FAA, DOT, OSHA, TSA, International Trade Regulations etc. On occasions this can slow the process down because Cessna cannot afford to breach any of these regulations and cause the business unit to be shut down. Cessna has 3 FAA Certified ODAR inspectors in the distribution center which allows them to sign off on the required 8130-3’s for all parts orders. In addition they have 23 Six-Sigma Green Belts on-site. One of the key issues they are working through right now with the Columbia parts is that they need information such as Country of Origin for all parts in order to be able to ship to international locations. This isn’t available on all parts today and thus Cessna is working to fill this out as quickly as they can when then encounter a part with insufficient documentation. Cessna handles all of the export paperwork for international shipments.

Warranty

The Cessna Warranty Program is designed to promote customer satisfaction. Warranty coverage is for any defect in material or workmanship, and is the Service Station’s responsibility to carry out and administer the Warranty Program. All claims must be submitted by an authorized Cessna Service Station. Cessna compensates the Service Stations to be the customer advocate ensuring successful resolution to a warranty event.

As noted above, Cessna processes over 85% of the warranty claims on-line. This allows the claim to go directly into the systems for processing. Submission of a paper claim may delay the resolution of a warranty claim. This also allows them to pay approved warranty claims in an average of 3.12 days and Peter keeps after Rebecca for the .12 part of that statistic. Cessna will also handle the transfer of warranty when ownership changes on an aircraft.

Warranty claims must be submitted within 30-days of job completion.

Service Bulletins for aircraft covered under warranty will include a credit allowance to the shop for completing the work. It is important to note that SB’s will be issued for specific aircraft serial numbers and any aircraft outside the serial number range will need prior permission for warranty coverage. During the warranty period Cessna will cover the cost of all Mandatory, Optional, and Recommended Service Bulletins.

When a part is shipped that has a Core for return a Core Deposit is paid by the shop and credited upon return of the core. If a part returned is outside of its service limits or not compatible with the core program then the owner is responsible for the entire cost of the part including the new core charge. This shouldn’t be a big issue to the Columbia fleet unless a core returned is damaged beyond repair and thus has to be scrapped. The Owner will then be required to pay the core charge to essentially get a new core into the system. The returned cores are overhauled / repaired only by FAA part 145 repair stations and then returned to the inventory. If the shop doesn’t return the core in the required timeframe they may get charged the core cost. Work with your service centers if they ever try to pass along a core charge and make sure that it isn’t due to their screw-up instead. Owners should not be responsible for a shop’s inability to follow Cessna’s guidelines.

If a part is ordered that turns out to be the wrong part or not actually needed the shop will need to get a “Authorized Return of Goods (ARG)” from Cessna. The part must be in new / resalable condition and cannot have been previously installed in the aircraft. The part must have been processed through the inventory control system (insures it actually came from CPD), and prior approval for the return must be requested and received by the shop. Cessna Service Centers are used to this system and it shouldn’t be a problem. If you are working with a new Service Center (ex-CARMA) express upon the shop the importance of dealing with proper handling of core’s and ARG’s.